Air Cargo Carriers News

By connecting to forwarder-customers of software vendor e2open, Freightos is continuing its push to develop electronic booking capability in the air freight industry.

Volume and rates on the Asian export corridors to the US and Europe have been high all year and online shopping promotions in November are further stoking the market.

The recent rise in volume to Europe contrasts sharply with China-to-US tonnage that in the second half has fallen far below year-over-year levels following greater scrutiny by US authorities on e-commerce imports.

A year of disruption has been on-the-job training for air freight shippers that are now battle-hardened and prepared for a tough end-of-year peak season.

Eight straight months of double-digit volume growth and a massive increase in trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe e-commerce volumes, mostly shipped from China by air, has left air cargo capacity in short supply.

Sustained demand for air cargo on the trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe trades and the promise of rising rates through the end-of-year peak are encouraging airlines to pull capacity from less-lucrative lanes.

Still, the buoyant mood of carriers contrasts with global forwarders that have low levels of exposure to e-commerce shipments and are under pressure to find capacity for traditional customers.

Eight straight months of double-digit volume growth in global air freight markets has kept freighters full and flying at peak utilization, and continued demand is expected to outstrip available capacity through Q4 and beyond.

The extent of the disruption to air freight schedules is not yet apparent, but the loss of the belly cargo space, even for a short period, comes at a particularly inconvenient time.

The service comes as air freight rates out of Hong Kong have stabilized but are still approximately 20% higher than this time last year, according to the Baltic Air Index.

Chinese online marketplaces have hit on a rich vein of business-to-customer volumes, with the current boom in international air freight driven by cross-border e-commerce rather than a recovery of traditional manufacturing.

Peak season has come early to air freight markets and with ocean shipping disrupted and e-commerce filling planes out of Asia, the demand is set to extend through the second half and beyond.

Not even the widespread disruption to global aviation from the Microsoft IT outage in mid-July could derail resurgent air freight markets.

More than 70% of air cargo space controlled by Kuehne + Nagel subsidiary Apex has been presold for the third and fourth quarters.

The air freight division of ocean carrier MSC now has a fleet of five branded Boeing 777 freighters that the carrier has deployed across major routes.

Shippers that have not yet arranged air freight capacity out of Asia for the fourth quarter could be in for an expensive ride, according to Xeneta.

Regulators in the US and Europe are placing online shopping marketplaces under increasing scrutiny as huge volumes of e-commerce packages, imported mainly from China, fill aircraft on trade lanes out of Asia.

With more than 80% of e-commerce transported as air cargo, there are growing safety and transparency issues given the minimal view provided of what is actually inside the parcels.

The state-owned rail operator believes it can leverage soaring demand for China-Europe rail freight to develop a multimodal service offering underpinned by a strong air cargo network.

The airline industry is pinning its hopes on sustainable aviation fuel providing a long-term path to net zero, but there will not be enough biofuel to go around, European climate campaigners Transport & Environment have found.

It is a good time to be in the freight transport business with air cargo and ocean shipping on the trade lanes out of Asia seeing sustained demand and robust rate levels.

US package shippers are shifting from air to ground and from premium-priced to deferred services, UPS says, boosting its SurePost volumes by 10%.

Demand that began to build at the end of last year spilled into the first quarter and K+N says its forward bookings indicate the positive volume development will continue as the year progresses.

Given the huge volumes involved in ocean freight, even a small percentage shift in transport mode from South Asia shippers is enough to keep air cargo demand and rates buoyant.

With Asia-Europe services already served by 12 weekly flights out of Paris, the addition of an Asia-US network will fill a crucial gap in the airline’s global coverage.

The air freight market is off to a strong start this year with volume out of Asia up 11% in the traditionally slow first quarter while rates rose steadily through March.

The freight hauled by the largest LTL trucking company in the US will become more global under a reorganization of FedEx’s varied domestic and international networks.

Maersk’s integrator strategy has encompassed more access to air freight capacity, including a new tool for shippers in India to digitally price and book specific flights.

A seasonal push to get shipments out of Asia before factories close for the Lunar New Year may be masking a switch to air from disrupted ocean networks.

The two French giants are in discussions to set up a new partnership, with each party operating its own independent air cargo network.

Air freight volumes are not expected to show any significant growth until well into 2024, and some analysts question whether there will even be a peak season for exports from Asia at the end of the year.

Workers loading and unloading planes at DHL Express’s Cincinnati-Kentucky hub will get higher wages and better benefits in a deal that ends a strike that threatened to disrupt the carrier’s US operations.

Rates on the eastbound trans-Pacific are at levels not seen since September 2022, but indicators suggest the market strength will not extend too far into 2024.

But rising air cargo rates on the major Asian export trade lanes do not portend a peak season this year with analysts pointing to poor economic conditions exerting strong downward pressure on consumers in the US and Europe.

A month ago, no one was predicting a peak season for air cargo on the trans-Pacific, but finding space from China to the US has become difficult as e-commerce demand heats up.

Rising airline costs and increasing air cargo demand over the last three months have largely insulated rate levels against a steady and significant increase in available air freight capacity.

A widening imbalance between available air freight capacity and demand has dragged global rates to their lowest level since the start of the pandemic, with no signs of volumes improving on key outbound routes from Asia.

Spot rates have fallen significantly over the past year, but there is still some way to go before prices are back to 2019 levels.

AlisCargo will join MSC’s air freight division in early 2024 as the ocean carrier steadily builds out its global air network.

Air cargo capacity continues to grow through the summer, outpacing weak demand from major destination markets with no sign yet of any turnaround.